Best Bird of the Weekend (First of April 2012)

Early April is a special time for most, especially those of us in the Northern Hemisphere that love each emerging sign of spring. The month and this particular period is all the more auspicious for me and mine, as so many friends and families celebrate spring birthdays. Today happens to be mine, so send some cheer my way!

My family took our annual post-Easter Egg hunt hike at Powder Mills Park, where I spied several gorgeous matched pairs of Wood Ducks along with lots of different woodpecker species. Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was actually two birds, a pair of Northern Ravens performing an aerial ballet while Corey and his family were out for a walk on Saturday. They were a joy to watch, and watching them led to a sighting of Corey’s first Merlin of the year, a fly-by he would otherwise have missed!

What was your best bird of the weekend? Tell us in the comments section about the rarest, loveliest, or most fascinating bird you observed. If you’ve blogged about your weekend experience, you should include a link in your comment.

Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.

Happy birthday! Best birds for me were a pair of Harlequin Ducks sitting on a tiny island, actually a rock, just beyond the low tide. I’d never seen them out of the water before, or so close, and they were gorgeous!

It’s hard to decide what was the best bird of my weekend, but I’d have to say that the White-tailed Ptarmigan would probably be the most satisfying of all my sightings. I wish all life bird sightings could be under such perfect conditions!

Three birds combine as the weekend highlight – Palm, Pine and Yellow-rumped Warblers. Yeah, I know none of these are exotic, rare or particularly attractive….but they were the first warblers of the year. The vanguard of exciting birds to come, the coming attractions, the heralds of the main wave of colorful warblers.
Hurray for Spring!

Happy Birthday! Southern Boobook was the best bird-we went out on purpose to look, as a full moon is the best time to have them hunting and sitting on the dirt roads as you drive slowly along. We got one within metres of the car’s lights…of course it was nice to add one more bird to my year list as well! 🙂

The arrival of the early warblers and ticks greeted us this weekend. But the biggest find this weekend was finding the lake (reservoir) that we frequent in New Rochelle, NY had been completely dredged. Sure the Wood Ducks were still hanging out, but I can’t imagine they will breed there this summer. The only benefit to the whole mess were dozens of egrets and herons, even Osprey overhead – all taking advantage of the easy catch of dead fish. I want our lake back!

Thanks to help from Jochen, a frequent contributor to this site, I was able to find a BLUETHROAT at Waghaeusel, Germany. An excellent suggestion – a visit there was the only birding I could do while visiting family in the Heidelberg area. Great birds throughout!